1. Introduction

In this tutorial, we'll guide you through handling both binary and text files in C#. By the end of this tutorial, you will understand the differences between these file types and be able to read from and write to both binary and text files.

Goals:

• Learn the difference between binary and text files
• Understand how to read from and write to text and binary files in C#

Prerequisites:

• Basic understanding of C# and .NET Framework
• Familiarity with object-oriented programming concepts

2. Step-by-Step Guide

Text Files

Text files are human-readable and contain structured or unstructured text data. They're easy to manipulate and debug, as you can open them in any text editor.

Binary Files

Binary files contain data in a format that's readable by machines but not directly readable by humans. They're more efficient in terms of size and speed compared to text files.

Reading and Writing Text Files

In C#, we use the StreamReader and StreamWriter classes from the System.IO namespace to read from and write to text files.

Reading and Writing Binary Files

To handle binary files, we use BinaryReader and BinaryWriter classes from the System.IO namespace.

3. Code Examples

Example 1: Writing to a Text File

using System.IO;

StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter("textfile.txt");
writer.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
writer.Close();

This code snippet creates a StreamWriter object, writes a line to a text file, and then closes the file.

Example 2: Reading From a Text File

using System.IO;

StreamReader reader = new StreamReader("textfile.txt");
string line = reader.ReadLine();
Console.WriteLine(line);
reader.Close();

This code snippet creates a StreamReader object, reads a line from a text file, prints the line to the console, and then closes the file.

Example 3: Writing to a Binary File

using System.IO;

BinaryWriter writer = new BinaryWriter(File.Open("binaryfile.bin", FileMode.Create));
writer.Write(12345);
writer.Close();

This code snippet creates a BinaryWriter object, writes an integer value to a binary file, and then closes the file.

Example 4: Reading from a Binary File

using System.IO;

BinaryReader reader = new BinaryReader(File.Open("binaryfile.bin", FileMode.Open));
int number = reader.ReadInt32();
Console.WriteLine(number);
reader.Close();

This code snippet creates a BinaryReader object, reads an integer value from a binary file, prints the number to the console, and then closes the file.

4. Summary

In this tutorial, we've covered the basics of handling text and binary files in C#. We looked at the differences between the two, how to read from and write to these files, and saw practical examples of both.

Next Steps

You can now move on to more advanced topics like handling large files, error handling with file operations, handling file paths, and working with directories.

Additional Resources

• Microsoft C# Documentation
• Microsoft .NET Documentation

5. Practice Exercises

1. Write a program that reads a text file and prints the number of lines in the file.
2. Write a program that writes a list of integers to a binary file.
3. Write a program that reads the list of integers from the binary file and prints them.

Tips

• Use the File.ReadAllLines() method to read all lines from a text file.
• Use a foreach loop to write multiple integers to a binary file.
• Use a while loop to read data from a binary file until the end of the file is reached.

Happy Coding!